


In a Week

by TheDemonLedger



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Fluff, Lich Lup, Sad, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Temporary Character Death, based on a hozier song, lich barry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22447531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDemonLedger/pseuds/TheDemonLedger
Summary: And they'd find us in a weekWhen the buzzards get loudWhen the insects have laid their claimAnd the foxes have known our tasteAnd the raven has had his sayI'd be home with you, I'd be home with youIt could have been minutes, or days, but when she escaped the trees it was to stumble and fall, face first, into a field of lupines. And she recognized them as lupines, the same kind she had on her own planet so many, many years ago. Pinks and reds and yellows and pale, pale violet-purples, all stretching and yawning towards a deeply azure sky.Story based off of the songIn a Weekby Hozier and this post ontumblr
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	In a Week

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiddencarpet on tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hiddencarpet+on+tumblr).



> Hi! Fair warning, this story is sort of sad, and by sort of I mean I definitely made myself cry when I was reading it back for inconsistencies. You've been warned. 
> 
> This story is based off of this post [Lup and Barry in Flowers by hiddencarpet](https://hiddencarpet.tumblr.com/post/190323097566/and-theyd-find-us-in-a-week-when-the-buzzards) on tumblr. I take absolutely no credit for that incredibly beautiful piece, but appreciate them so much for allowing me to use it as inspiration. 
> 
> It is also based of of the song (linked above) "In a Week" by Hozier. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy, have a really wonderful day. Check out the bottom notes for my tumblr, if you want!  
> xx - Liv

The whole thing had been a fucking shit-show from the start. 

They landed in a thicket of brillowy pines, Bond-Engine smoking, half-dead and exhausted, and the year had barely even started. Something big and formidable had caught them, and chucked them far and hard like they were nothing more than a paper plane drifting easily through the sky. Lup’s side ached as she sat up – the only thing that had kept her from flying entirely from the Starblaster was Barry’s inelegant dive atop her, but now he was nowhere to be seen. 

“Barry!” she screamed, attempting and failing to stand upright. There was something wrong with her, and she knew it was serious when she put a hand to her ribs and felt the hot and the wet and smelled the sting of iron. “Fuck. Barry!” Her voice was hoarse with the strain of it, her movements nearly convulsive as she tried to find her way off the ship, stumbling and weaving over broken glass and – heaven forbid she look down – what could have been the bodies of her friends, her lover, her brother. But she wouldn’t, she _couldn’t_ think of that now. They’d experienced it too many times, had witnessed it over and over and it never got any rawer, any less painful, any easier. So, breathing hard, she swallowed down her tears and her dread and staggered forward, toward the light she knew was an exit. 

An exit is was, though not intentionally. Whatever beast or creature or titan had grabbed them on this god for-fucking-saken planet had ripped through the hull of the ship like tissue paper. Although, Lup reasoned with herself, it could easily have been the trees. 

“Taako! Barry!” she yelled, and kept yelling, forgetting the warnings that Magnus always tried to make her hear – who cared if she died? _She was a lich_. All she had to do was keep her head on steady, try not to panic, and remember her boys. The sweet, wonderful men that kept her steady. The sweet, wonderful men who were _missing._

Lush was the word she would use to describe the landing zone; verdant, large, _horrific_ , and inconceivably vast. She patted herself down for her wand, only to find that missing too. 

“ _Fuck_!” she cursed again. Everything hurt. She didn’t know what was going on, where her team was, where her _brother_ was. And where the hell was Barry? 

Crashing noises echoed from the ship behind her, and she turned wildly. Magnus, a gash on his head and a piece of rebar clutched in his hand, staggered from the maw-like gap in the side of the Starblaster. Squinting and swaying, he lunged toward her. 

“Lup,” he said when he reached her, panting and obviously pained. The surveying look on his face told her she probably appeared as bad – if not worse – than she felt. “Where’s Taako?” 

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “What the hell is this place?” More crashing, more great thumps and rustles from within the ship as three more figures piled out. 

“I have to go check on Fisher,” Magnus said distractedly, and he stumbled away. Merle, Lucretia, and Davenport staggered out together. 

Taako was still nowhere to be seen; neither was Barry. Her heart fell into her stomach as Lucretia looked at her and softly, slowly, painfully shook her head. It couldn’t be true. Not both of them. A whole year of lich Barry, of not being able to touch or hold him? And a _year_ without her brother, from the start? Knees giving out, Lup fell to the ground. Everything around her was too pristine for this moment, too perfect, too beautiful. Flowers of colors she didn’t have names for, trees that towered and swayed in an unceasing breeze, air that smelled lightly perfumed but whatever these gorgeous, glorious things were. But she didn’t have it in her to be angry at the ground, at the dirt and the trees and the sweet-smelling air. All she had left was the ability to stand, just barely, and turn and stagger away. 

It was a cowards move, to leave without attempting to face the bodies that would remain behind, to hide and lick her wounds until she either healed on her own or succumbed to them. 

Her walk took her through the forest, through the thick underbelly of the scrubby brush that scratched at her hands, and even doubled-over she could see the glory of this world, old and uninhabited and thriving. There was no sound except the crunch of twigs beneath her feet, no bird calls or scuffling animals or mammalian screams. Perhaps she had deafened herself fully with her sadness. To Lup though, it seemed empty, hollow, hopeless. 

And even if life thrived here, it was wrong if they weren’t in it.

Lup had decided from the second Lucretia shook her head that she would _rather_ die, _rather_ spend her year with Barry and be able to touch his soul with her soul, than have to live an entire year without the comfort of her two pillars. It wasn’t safe to do alone, in the state she was in. 

But hell, when was anything she ever did a great example of safety?

It could have been minutes, or days, but when she escaped the trees it was to stumble and fall, face first, into a field of lupines. And she recognized them as lupines, the same kind she had on her own planet so many, many years ago. Pinks and reds and yellows and pale, pale violet-purples, all stretching and yawning towards a deeply azure sky. If it hadn’t been for her recognition of these flowers, of her love for their honey scent and the way they banded together, she may not have noticed him. 

Barry. 

Alone, broken, and dying in the middle of this great, colorful field. 

“Oh my god,” she cried, scrabbling forward. A yelp of pain escaped her as whatever wound in her side protested and a flash of red puddled on her shoes and the flowers beneath her. Her breathing quickened, turning sharp and short and shallow as she made her way as fast as she could to her lovers side. “Holy shit.” 

It was worse than she’d thought. 

He’d been thrown from the Starblaster when he pushed her down, bodily and mightily and _so fucking far_. How had he ended up here? Was he even still alive to hear her? Fingers ghosting over the face which, bruised and damaged as it was, was still _her_ Barry’s beautiful countenance, she let herself cry. If he was gone, his lich form would be here. Since it wasn’t, she could only assume he was still alive, somewhere. She heard a hard swallow and opened her eyes to see his own bloodshot, dark-brown eyes staring back at her. 

“Barry, oh my god, Barry,” she whispered, leaning over with an anguished murmur to kiss his face and hair. 

“Hey, babe,” he said, though his voice was a croak. He grimaced as he moved his hand to brush her hair from her sweat-sticky forehead. “You’re alive, I see.” 

“So are you,” she replied. “But–” 

“Did you bring Merle?” he asked. When Lup shook her head, Barry looked relieved rather than disappointed. “That’s okay.” 

“Baby,” she muttered, disheartened at his easy relinquish to life. “I’ll go back, I’ll find him, I can bring him here.” 

“Just lay with me,” he whispered. “Please.” 

“At least let me make us a fire,” she pleaded. The sky was starting to darken, bringing with it a blanket of stars. He acquiesced gracefully; Lup stood with some effort and made her way back to the treeline. There were plenty of fallen branches to gather – she only needed a few to get a fire rip-roaring enough to keep them warm while they waited. Barry hadn’t moved at all by the time she returned, laden down and over-encumbered by the wood she carried. Knowing he was watching, waiting, she hurried to create something big enough to keep the night’s chill away. 

“They’ll find us,” Barry murmured. She glanced back at him with fear in her eyes as the wood she’s propped against itself caught fire with a snap of her fingers. 

“In a week,” she muttered. “When we’re dead.” 

“So we’re dead,” Barry said with a choked laugh. Crawling to him on three limbs, the other still clutching her side where the blood had stopped dripping but the gash still screamed, she tried to laugh too – it hurt too much to keep trying. Barry coughed, but still met Lup’s eye and spoke again. “At least I’m with you. That’s something like home, you know?” 

“I know,” she said in an undertone. “I’m home with you, babe.” 

They laid beside each other, hand in hand, staring up at the stars. Lup pointed, trying to find constellations that looked like those that were back home. When she looked over, she saw that Barry was watching her, rather than the sky above. Achingly, she turned to face him. 

#

It took two days for her to lose all the strength she had, and for Barry to grow so weak with hunger and thirst that his eyes could barely stay open. She talked, and he listened, listened to stories of Lup and Taako as children sleeping in a vast cathedral when they’d been separated from their parents for the first time; listened to the sharp, biting tone of misery as she lamented that the team hadn’t found them yet; and soothed as she cried, begging him to stay with her like this for another hour, another day, another week. 

They both know it was never meant to last. 

So, when Barry opened his eyes for the last time, it was to give her a long, searching, strengthening look. He couldn’t speak, and she didn’t expect him too. Even still, she couldn’t help it, so sweet was the look on Barry’s face as she turned to him, soft grass brushing against her skin. The tears just came. Especially after his hand found hers and squeezed one last time and the light faded from his eyes. The tears came, and they shook the whole of Lup as she waited for him to come back. Slowly, as if dragging himself from the dirt, the skeletal and spectral form of Barry rose from the chest of his body and floated to lay beside her. Nonsense shushing came from him, too sweet and too calm for how much it hurt. 

Because it did, and they seemed to forget this despite the number of times it happened. It hurt to die, to watch each other die, and to pull their spirits from empty bodies. It all hurt: the injury and the scooping out and the being stitched back together in the end, over and over, time and again. So Lup, in all her pain and hunger and fever flushed skin, let Barry’s spectral essence huddle close to her. The final fire she’d made hours ago had long burned too low to be warming still. 

This third night encroached with haste, but Lup’s body refused to let go. It just held on and on and on until, just before the dawn, one last shiver wracked her and she was gone. If he could have cried, Barry would have been sobbing, soul rent in two, heart shattered at the sudden and inexplicable yet entirely predicted absence of her. At some point in her sleep, she’d curled closer to his body and had pressed her weary forehead flush against his as, all at once, her breathing stopped. Time passed, long enough for Barry to grow worried that she would never come. All he could do was sit in the flowers and wait. She would be here. 

She would never leave him alone. 

Eventually, the flush fully faded from her warm, round face, and as though it took some doing, Lup rose up before she crashed wildly into him. They could not dig themselves graves to bury their bodies – why would they want to, anyway? The least they could do was feed something hungry with their skin and bones. So in this tired space, where their spectral forms were dark and dull and diluted from the death that had wiped them clean, they rolled in their magic and roiled it, bringing it bubbling to the surface. 

For the first time since their turbulent landing, Lup looked at Barry and laughed without pain; it was a fantastic, resplendent laugh that echoed through the field of flowers. This laughter burst through her as she spiralled up and up and burst away from the tree cover, fire flaring from her incorporeal form like a cannon blast, or a meteor strike, or exactly like Lup. 

Bringing Barry’s essence back was more subtle. As Lup returned to hover in front of him, they moved close to one another, and mirroring the figures on the ground, pressed their foreheads together; there was no air to breathe here, no needs unmet, no silence to be kept. His spirit cleared, his energy returned, his soul elevated to match hers. 

Together, these two liches were magnificent.

#

It took them only an hour to find the Starblaster and the team, fully healed thanks to Merle’s skillful hands. Lucretia’s scowl was tempered only by the voice of Taako, loud and angry as hell, screaming at Lup for vanishing. Seeing him with one hand on his hip and the other holding a hammer – uncharacteristically handy, even for a situation this dire – Lup’s heart soared. 

Her brother; her sweet, brilliant, breath-taking _twin_. He was here. He was _alive_. 

“How dare you die,” he cried up at her, shaking his hammer in her general direction. Lup paid him no mind, choosing instead to soar down and swirl around Taako in what could only be described as a spectral hug. It did nothing to diminish his consternation or frustration, but Lup had never been happier. 

“Where are your bodies?” asked Lucretia with care a few hours later; she had the courtesy to let Lup look at Taako for long enough to be sure he wasn’t going anywhere. “There are some creatures in this world that would love to get a piece of them, so I’d like to–” 

“Let them have them,” said Lup quickly, glancing at Barry and back again. “We’re home now.” Lucretia scrunched her nose in distaste, but shrugged and marched away. The distance between Lup and Barry now was nothing, and Lup had no words for the ache inside her unearthly chest, because it wasn’t grief or sadness or anything as raggedly frustrating as that could have been. 

Instead, it was exhausted happiness. 

Because for the first time since landing on this planet she would never call home, one that would be swallowed up and taken by the Hunger, she felt at peace. The man she loved would never leave her again – this lich form assured them of that; the twin she was so deeply entwined with was still with her, despite her fear for him. 

From that moment on, and every year after that, when someone asked Lup what her favorite flower was, she said without even needing to stop to think: lupines. 

#

If the team had gone to where the bodies of Lup and Barry had laid, empty of the inhabitants who were nothing but unhelpful ghosts on a ship that only just began to run again; if they went and looked when the heavens darkened, they would see two skeletons, foreheads pressed together, clothes torn. One would be small, and one would be tall – though draped in red robes as they were, you may not know which belonged to who – and flowers would be growing up within them, around them, and through them. Their hands would still be laced together, strangely enough, even though the ravens and buzzards had pecked, and the foxes torn, and the bugs buzzed. 

That is what they would have seen. 

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the end.  
> Did you like what you read? A bookmark, kudo, or comment is always appreciated.  
> I have new stuff going up all the time. Interested in seeing more? Go ahead and subscribe to me.  
> I write predominantly for the MCU, The Hunger Games, The Adventure Zone, and sometimes Harry Potter, but I'm always taking suggestions. Have an idea? Send it to me over tumblr at [thedemonledger](https://thedemonledger.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Have a wonderful, really great, amazing day. xx - Liv


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